Dear Prospective Property owners,
 |
| Mike Greeff |
I
asked Mike Greeff CEO and founder of the Greeff Properties estate agency how he
could justify newspaper advertisements for his firm that contained pictures of
ON SHOW homes that had yet to be built?
They were in the Cape
Times in Cape Town
He really hit the big time when his firm was asked to join
Christie’s International Real Estate as an affiliate. Christie’s has built its
world wide empire in 46 countries through a rigorous selection of local
brokerages. These affiliate appointments are so prestigious that they are by
invitation only.
So Greeff Properties has a very high standard to live up
to. That’s why I wondered why it resorted to this kind of advertising. And I
was even more baffled when I tried to find out from Christie’s if it approved
of what Greeff was doing.
In
spite of his extensive experience in the property game Mike doesn’t seem to be
aware of the meaning of ON SHOW or SHOW HOUSE as Google refers to it. Numerous
explanations from the Collins English Dictionary to Longman and others are
given, and all of them say much the same thing.
“A house that has been built and fitted with furniture to
show buyers what similar new houses look like.”
There is absolutely nothing to suggest that a plan or a
model of a yet to be built property on a site that is currently vacant
qualifies for that ON SHOW label that appeared on the pictures of some of the
new developments Greeff was promoting in that supplement.
The contentious issue at stake was this:
What would the majority of
people expect to see on a development site if they were first attracted to it
by an advertisement with very realistic colour pictures of a townhouse or flat
complex building? In some cases pictures of furnished rooms were included. They
also had ON SHOW in red on the corner of the pictures with the copy next to it
making it appear even more real by giving directions like this: “ON SHOW Sunday
2-5pm. Follow boards from Brommersvlei, Rust en Vrede into Wycombe.”
Christo Weilbach, a Board
member of South Africa’s Estate Agency Affairs Board (EAAB) that is the
statutory body that polices estate agents, agreed with me that this kind of
adverting is “misleading.” He emphasised that he was speaking in his personal
capacity and not as a board member.
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| 11 August - Wycombe Place |
 |
| 11 August - Wycombe Place with nothing yet built on the site |
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| 26 August - Revised ad with *Artist's impression in the bottom right hand corner |
Weilbach
is with Belinda Oosthuizen Properties in Pretoria
Its Code of Conduct states
that “members shall in offering property, avoid misrepresentation or
concealment of material facts which are known to such member.”
Here
are extracts of my email conversation with Mike Greeff about this touchy
subject?
15 August 2017
Dear Mike Greeff,
I am a freelance journalist,
who also has a blog and I am proposing to write a story about what I and other
people I have spoken to consider to be misleading advertising done by your
firm. This is why I am contacting you to get your comments on what I
discovered. On 11 August your firm
had a 16 page advertising supplement in the Cape Times
On
your website you are quoted as saying: “Our ethos is we are a boutique agency
servicing a niche market and as such we specialise, which means our standards
must remain impeccably high.”
How
can this kind of advertising possibly be described as setting an “impeccably
high standard” when it is clearly misleading? Image how somebody would feel, if
based on your advertising, they had arrived at one of the sites on Sunday and found
nothing there.
 |
| 11 August - The developer's website described this as "set on the banks of the Hout Bay River" whereas this advert said it was "on the banks of the Disa River Wetlands" possibly because Greeff didn't want to high light Hout Bay where there have been violent protests recently |
 |
| 11 August - This was the closest they had got to a complex on the site |
 |
| 26 August - Revised ad with *Artist's Impression in the bottom right hand corner |
17 August
I asked him if he wanted to say anything about this or whether I could assume he had no comment to make.
I asked him if he wanted to say anything about this or whether I could assume he had no comment to make.
18 August 2017
He told me he would reply on Monday three days
later.
21 August 2017 – Monday
His promised reply did not materialise so I
sent him another email saying that I assumed that I could now go ahead with my
post as he no longer wished to comment. I added: “Obviously I can’t force you to explain why your firm
made the claims it did in that advertising supplement. In it buildings were
pictured and referred to as being ON SHOW when they didn’t actually exist. And
I think if you did a quick survey among passers by in the street, who own their
own homes, all of them would say without hesitation that this kind of
advertising is not at all kosher.”
22August 2017
He replied saying he wanted to get “all facts
and opinions” and would get back to me on Wednesday 23 August. It was strange
that he should take so long to answer my initial email if his advertising had
been perfectly above board.
Later
the same day he finally replied to my email of 15 August saying:
“At Greeff
Properties we are very involved in the sale of developments and your suggestion
that we are in any way acting unlawfully or unethically in our advertising is
incorrect and rejected.
“We are busy with
various developments which we have advertised as being on show, some of these
developments are already built upon, some are in the course of construction and
others where building has not as yet commenced.
“The intention of
having show days is for potential purchasers to be able to see the property
upon which the development is to be constructed or is being constructed and to
decide whether they want to buy into a new development.
“When people come
to see the property they are shown details of the intended development and are
given information concerning what is proposed to be built and the
specifications relating thereto.
“We conduct our
business in an ethical manner and according to the code of conduct of the
Estate Agency Affairs Board.”
Clause 5.5.1 of its Code of Conduct stipulates
that agents must not “wilfully or negligently mislead or misrepresent in regard
to any matter pertaining to the immovable property in respect of which he has a
mandate.”
Mike concluded his email
by stating: “I’m not sure whether you are actually looking at buying in a
development but, if you are, I am more than happy to meet with you and to
discuss the development of your choice with you. If you require any
further information please do not hesitate to contact me.”
This baffled me
because I had at all times made it clear that I was a journalist about to write
a story and no reporter worth his salt would consider buying property through
an estate agency accused of misleading advertising that he was writing about.
In spite of having
told me that there was nothing unethical about his advertisements lo and behold
they changed. In the Weekend Argus of 26
August most of the developments that I had seen before were pictured once
again with ON SHOW prominently
displayed in the top right hand corner. Only this time in the tiniest of
letters they had “*Artist’s impression” on one side of the last line of the
copy below the pictures.
27
August
I told Mike that the changes were
an admission that his previous advertisements had been misleading. Why are you
so reluctant to tell people in your ads something like “Building is expected to
start soon,” I asked, because they are going to find out soon enough that there
is nothing on the site? What you are doing, I submit, could make some people
wonder about the ethics of your firm in general.
30
August
Mike explained that the
rejection of my allegation that their advertising was misleading was based on
“our opinion that the images are
clearly renderings/artist impressions.
However, you drew our attention to your concerns, and your letter was taken to
heart by our marketing department, and they, for the sake of future clarity,
have implemented a few small changes. In this regard, thank you for your
input.”
* *
* *
He ignored my suggestion that his advertisements should
make it absolutely clear that the stands were still vacant.
Has his small addition solved the problem? You be the
judge.
I have no idea how
long Greeff Properties had been running the type of advertisements I had
concerns about, before the changes were made.
Regards,
Jon, a Consumer Watchdog of long standing who would be a
property investor if only……. he had the money.
P.S. Read about the incredible way Christie’s dodged my efforts to
get comment about Greeff’s advertising from its CEO Dan Conn & the Estate
Agent Affairs Board’s reluctance to say whether or not its original advertising
was acceptable
(christies)
(christies)
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